The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene [91]
Chapter Two
1
WILSON tore the page carefully out of The Downhamian and pasted a thick sheet of Colonial Office notepaper on. the back of the poem. He held it up to the light: it was impossible to read the sports results on the other side of his verses. Then he folded the page carefully and put it in his pocket; there it would probably stay, but one never knew.
He had seen Scobie drive away towards the town and with beating heart and a sense of breathlessness, much the same as he had felt when stepping into the brothel, even with the same reluctance - for who wanted at any given moment to change the routine of his life? - he made his way downhill towards Scobie’s house.
He began to rehearse what he considered another man in his place would do: pick up the threads at once: kiss her quite naturally, upon the mouth if possible, say ‘I’ve missed you’, no uncertainty. But his beating heart sent out its message of fear which drowned thought.
‘It’s Wilson at last,’ Louise said. ‘I thought you’d forgotten me,’ and held out her hand. He took it like a defeat.
‘Have a drink.’
‘I was wondering whether you’d like a walk.’
‘It’s too hot, Wilson.’
‘I haven’t been up there, you know, since...’
‘Up where?’ He realized that for those who do not love time never stands still.
‘Up at the old station.’
She said vaguely with a remorseless lack of interest, ‘Oh yes ... yes, I haven’t been up there myself yet.’
‘That night when I got back,’ he could feel the awful immature flush expanding,’ I tried to write some verse.’
‘What, you, Wilson?’
He said furiously, ‘Yes, me, Wilson. Why not? And it’s been published.’
‘I wasn’t laughing. I was just surprised. Who published it?’
‘A new paper called The Circle. Of course they don’t pay much.’
‘Can I see it?’
Wilson said breathlessly, ‘I’ve got it here.’ He explained, ‘There was something on the other side I couldn’t stand. It was just too modern for me.’ He watched her with hungry embarrassment.
‘It’s quite pretty,’ she said weakly.
‘You see the initials?’
‘I’ve never had a poem dedicated to me before.’
Wilson felt sick; he wanted to sit down. Why, he wondered, does one ever begin this humiliating process: why does one imagine that one is in love? He had read somewhere that love had been invented in the eleventh century by the troubadours. Why had they not left us with lust? He said with hopeless venom, ‘I love you.’ He thought: it’s a lie, the word means nothing off the printed page. He waited for her laughter.
‘Oh, no, Wilson,’ she said, ‘no. You don’t. It’s just Coast fever.’
He plunged blindly, ‘More than anything in the world.’
She said gently, ‘No one loves like that, Wilson.’
He walked restlessly up and down, his shorts flapping, waving the bit of paper from The Downhamian. ‘You ought to believe in love. You’re a Catholic. Didn’t God love the world?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘He’s capable of it But not many of us are.’
‘You love your husband. You told me so. And it’s brought you back.’
Louise said sadly, ‘I suppose I do. All I can. But it’s not the kind of love you want to imagine you feel. No poisoned chalices, eternal doom, black sails. We don’t die for love, Wilson - except, of course, in books. And sometimes a boy play-acting. Don’t let’s play-act, Wilson - it’s no fun at our age.’
‘I’m not play-acting,’ he said with a fury in which he could hear too easily the histrionic accent. He confronted her bookcase as though it were a witness she had forgotten. ‘Do they play-act?’
‘Not much,’ she said. ‘That’s why I like them better than your poets.’
‘All